All evidence suggested that the Cremators did not take their subjects at random, only those who entered into a special contract. Did Nathans have a traitor in his own midst? It was a particularly sharp blow to think that Rodney Quick could have been involved with the Cremators. It infuriated him, made him feel blindingly impotent.
He gritted his teeth and switched on the screen again. The Enforcer jumped. “I don’t care what you have to do, or how you go about it. But I want you to find Rodney Quick’s body.”
With a gesture of finality, Nathans blanked the screen, watching the nervous Enforcer vanish into dark static. He paced the room, talking to himself, thinking through possibility after possibility. Some of them worked out in his favor, some of them didn’t.
A whispered voice in the background, Fats Waller continued to sing the blues.
He had not quite managed to walk the perimeter of the room twice before the message light signaled again. Nathans scowled impatiently at the interruption, but then he realized the communication came from a different channel, one of the more highly secured outlets.
A blue-armored Elite Guard stared back at him as the screen came into focus. “We’ve found him.”
Nathans felt a surge of excitement. “Who? Rodney Quick?”
“Who?” the Elite Guard asked.
“Never mind. Who did you find?”
“Your Servant, sir.”
Nathans gripped the edge of the desk, feeling his heart pound. “Where is he? Is he injured?”
“We think he’s holed up in a medical center in another district. One of the Guild Interfaces spotted his name and ID code entered into The Net. A nurse/tech apparently processed him for physical repairs. As your receptionist implied, Enforcer Jones seems to have injured him during his escape. He’s been recuperating there most of the afternoon.”
“Can we get him? What’s the situation?”
“Probably. We’ll have to be careful.”
“Damned right you will! I don’t want him damaged. He’s too valuable. I’ve got a lot riding on that particular Servant. Do you understand?”
“Ours is not to reason why.” The dry tone from the faceless Elite Guard almost startled Nathans. “We’ll capture your Servant.”
Nathans rubbed his hands briskly together, but then realized it was an old habit he had picked up from Stromgaard. “I’ll wait for you to bring him to me.”
24
And then the ritual of the High Sabbat, viewed through a drug-fogged haze. He saw the crowded people, the altar, the symbols—
Rah hyunn!
Rah hyuun!
—the imposter wearing the face of Vincent Van Ryman, holding up the sharp-bladed arthame as the real Vincent lay back, paralyzed, unable to move, unable to cringe. But perfectly able to feel the biting steel maul its way into his chest.
“Ashes to ashes, blood to blood; fly to Hell for all our good!”
“I remember the pain of the knife, like an explosion. And then… everything turned black, a hard black, like a polished rock. I can’t describe it,” Danal said, focusing his gaze deep into the distance.
“Then I was blinking my eyes and looking out of the vat on the resurrection levels. Amniotic fluid was draining down into grates in the floor—I could hear it. All of that’s still very vivid to me. A tech stood in front of me.” Danal hung his head. “I killed him later on.”
The nurse/tech didn’t seem concerned. “Nothing in between? Just the knife thrust and then waking up in Resurrection, Inc.?”
Danal wrinkled his smooth forehead as he considered. “Nothing. It’s like a cassette tape that’s been spliced together. First my death, and then a gap, and then… coming back.”
The nurse/tech did not seem surprised, as if she had heard it all before.
Suddenly Danal’s own mind doubled back on him, and other questions—previously held at bay by his recurring memories—began to push forward. “But who are you? You’re a Servant! I can tell by your skin. You were a Servant… you’re alive!”
She smiled placidly. “Just like you.”
Her words struck him like a splash of cold water on his face. “Are there… others?”
“Yes, others who have awakened—through some traumatic experience—and now they can access the memories of their previous lives. After you meet Gregor, he’ll explain it a lot better than I can.”
Danal sat with his eyes wide and his mouth open in wonder. Possibilities echoed inside his head, and he had to hammer them back, forcing them to come one at a time so that his consciousness would not be overwhelmed by awe. “What do we do now?”
The nurse/tech grasped at his practical question, as if the more esoteric explanations made her uneasy. “First of all, we have to get you out of here. And soon. Upon admitting you, I entered your ID and your Master’s name into The Net—anybody with sense enough to look will be able to track you down, sooner or later. We’ll have to get you out unobtrusively, to a safe place.”
Then her eyes grew hard. “But one thing I absolutely must impress upon you, something you have to keep at the front of your mind above all else. Something you can’t forget.”
“What?”
Like someone sharing a secret initiation, the nurse/tech lowered her voice. “We must not be discovered. If the public knew that Servants can awaken, maybe return as lost loved ones, or lost enemies—well, I don’t want to consider the consequences. People are already uneasy enough about us.
“We’ve got to keep it secret—that’s our greatest advantage. We Wakers can do things, support ourselves and plan for our future. It’s delicate stuff, with such far-reaching consequences as the future of all Servants, so we’ve got to proceed with the utmost care. We don’t want massacres of Servants, and we don’t want an upheaval of all society, you know.”
She ran out of patience with herself. “Gregor will explain it all to you. He’s a lot more eloquent. For now, I’m more concerned with getting you to him. Stay here a minute.”
The nurse/tech left the bright room, sliding the door shut behind her. She hurried out to the front lobby with a firm, businesslike stride, but stopped abruptly upon looking out the transplastic entry doors.
Outside, the black hulking shape of an Enforcers Guild hovertransport hung in the air with its tonguelike ramp extending to the ground. A second transport lowered itself into position. White-armored Enforcers filed out of the first craft, taking positions near the door. An Elite Guard, accompanied by one regular Enforcer, strode to the sliding transplastic doors; his midnight-blue armor made him look much larger than he actually was.
Several of the techs and waiting patients pushed excitedly to the window, watching and whispering to each other; other patients remained apathetic, scanning Net periodicals or staring at the artificial plant-things in the lobby.
As the doors slid open for the Elite Guard and the first Enforcer, the nurse/tech moved to meet him before anyone else could speak. The Elite Guard was startled by her abrupt presence, and she used it to push her advantage.
“Yes, Guildsman, how may we be of assistance? I can see this is serious. Please be careful. The safety of our patients is paramount.”
The blue-armored Guard turned his opaque visor toward her. “You have a Servant here. He was injured, and someone healed him.”
“That is our business after all,” she said, smothering her own sarcasm.